The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that the Drug Enforcement Agency significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana but stopped short of advising that it should be entirely removed from the Controlled Substances Act.
The health agency wants the drug moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA, potentially the biggest change in federal drug policy in decades.
HHS Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine wrote in a Tuesday letter to the DEA, first reported by Bloomberg News, that the recommendation was based on a review conducted by the Food and Drug Administration.
The executive branch doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally deschedule it. I’m no Biden fan, but this is him working toward that promise. I do wish his moves were less political in nature, but maybe we can get a more unhinged dark Brandon if he gets reelected.
What would you like from him? I see that he is very aggressively chasing public favor. “his moves were less political” - so there is something you’d like him to do that wouldn’t be so popular?
By less political, I mean moves that are meant to not shake the boat, such as falling short of just outright stating that weed should be legalized.
Edit: misplaced not
Yes it does. The drug schedule is set by the FDA which is under the executive branch. The President cannot LEGALIZE it, that takes an act of Congress. But, the drug classification is completely in their power.
Either he promised to do something he couldn’t do and you’re defending him for it, or he promised to do something he could do and you’re making excuses for him.
I am pretty sure he didn’t actually promise it. I know he said he supports decriminalization and getting it rescheduled to Schedule 2, but I am pretty confident he never went out and said “I will get it moved to schedule 2” or anything along those lines.
I have seen a lot of people say about what he promised to do while campaigning but I am pretty sure it is mostly people taking him saying he wants to do something and reading it as him saying “I will do this”. Joe Biden has been in politics a very long time and knows what the president can and can’t do, I doubt he overpromised.
It isn’t like he ran as a progressive, he didn’t make a ton of big promises while campaigning. It was basically him saying “I will make things somewhat normal” after the Trunp presidency.
Nothing will fundamentally change
I agree with you, at least under Joe Biden. And I hate that nothing will change under Joe Biden. I’m just saying that he didn’t advertise himself on things changing. He advertised himself as being sane and stable compared to Donald Trump. Which he has pretty much fulfilled.
Nobody here is really defending Joe Biden or making excuses for him. We just acknowledge who he is as a politician. Personally, considering Joe Biden’s track record on drugs/weed, I’m pleased with what he has done and with this. It isn’t what I want, but this was a man who wrote anti-drug legislation while in Congress, this is more than I’d have expected from him if you asked me prior to him running for President.
Well said. I personally would want a much more progressive president. But, given his track record, I had very, very low expectations for him. I’m happy to say that he has exceeded my expectations, which is nice. But, there’s still a lot more that could be done.
I was specifically referring to Biden’s own words. “Nothing will fundamentally change” is a campaign promise. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/
I completely misunderstood, my bad. That is what I get for posting right before bed, I didn’t make the connection at all haha
What a negative take. OP just finished saying Biden is taking steps to fulfill his promise, and you’re trying to put an ultimatum on “he can, or he cannot.” It is never that black and white nor is it an overnight action
Our populace has been conditioned to see issues as black and white. If people recognized the nuance in topics like this, it would be much harder to divide us on ideological lines, and therefore harder to control us.
It’s not their fault, but we should just generally ignore takes like that. It’s usually not even worth responding to.